In 1950 at Gwendolyn Gardens, Digby and his stalwart colleague Cromwell share their nightly debrief, balancing spirits with vigilance. Cromwell reports a landslide at the eleventh hairpin, threatening food supplies and access. Digby reflects on isolation, his makeshift family, and the precariousness of estate life.

When the rains suddenly cease, estate work resumes. Cromwell has already mobilized laborers to cut a U-shaped bypass. As Digby rides out, a bullock cart arrives with an emergency: a pregnant woman with a small abdominal incision from which her unborn baby’s fist protrudes.

At the clinic, Digby finds the wound neat and shallow enough to have entered the uterus without injuring bowel. Lacking safe conditions for caesarean, he improvises: he snatches Skaria’s smoldering cheroot and holds the heat near the infant’s knuckles, provoking withdrawal. He then places uterine and skin stitches, closing the rent and preserving the pregnancy.

The mother, Lizzi, speaks fluent English and remains composed. She explains that her husband, Kora, an estate writer, became acutely delirious after consuming asthma cigarettes; he attacked her, then was remorseful. Digby recognizes atropine poisoning from stramonium and expects improvement as it wears off. He advises hospital delivery when labor begins.

As Kora raves outside, Lizzi confides they fled debts and lost their home. Digby feels a chilling premonition about her future but reassures her that the baby should be fine. To lighten the moment, he jokingly christens the unborn child “Lenin Evermore,” marking the encounter with grim humor amid landslide repairs and ongoing estate hazards.